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StatsCan chief quits over census furor

By Bruce Campion-Smithand Richard J. BrennanOttawa Bureau

Thu., July 22, 2010

OTTAWA—The head of Statistics Canada has quit in protest over the Conservative government’s decision to axe the long-form census questionnaire, warning that Ottawa’s proposal for a voluntary survey won’t work.

Munir Sheikh, who had kept a low-profile during the brewing controversy, announced Wednesday night that he had submitted his resignation.

Sheikh said he couldn’t comment on the specific advice he gave the government about their push to replace the long-form census questionnaire with a voluntary “household” survey.

But he made clear that he couldn’t accept a voluntary survey the Conservatives insist will be just as good as the mandatory census it replaces.

“I want to take this opportunity to comment on a technical statistical issue, which has become the subject of media discussion,” Sheikh wrote on the Statistics Canada website.

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“This relates to the question of whether a voluntary survey can become a substitute for a mandatory census,” he wrote. “It cannot. Under the circumstances, I have tendered my resignation to the Prime Minister.”

He closed by thanking agency employees for their “dedication.”

“Without your contribution, day in and day out, in producing data of the highest quality, Canada would not have this institution that is our pride,” he said.

Sheikh’s resignation means the ballooning drama at the usually staid and low-profile agency is now a full-fledged political crisis for the Conservatives, who have been accused of turning their backs on evidence-based research.

In a statement, Industry Minister Tony Clement said he accepted the resignation with “regret.” He said Wayne Smith, assistant chief statistician, business and trade statistics, will do the top job until a permanent replacement is found.

The decision caps a day of drama that saw Sheikh abruptly cancel plans to hold a town hall meeting with agency staff Wednesday afternoon to answer questions about the Tories’ change to the census.

Just an hour before the 2 p.m. session was due to begin, Sheikh abruptly pulled the plug and, faced with a mounting countrywide furor over the census decision, told employees in an email he was mulling his future.

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Shortly after 7 p.m. came the confirmation the Sheikh, who joined the agency in 2008, was leaving.

In his statement, Clement acknowledged the “considerable” commentary that has swirled around the Tory decision to replace the mandatory census questionnaire but gave no signal the government would be backing down, despite the latest development.

“The government took this decision because we do not believe Canadians should be forced, under threat of fines, jail, or both, to divulge extensive private and personal information”, Clement said.

Clement acknowledged that Statistics Canada’s “preferred approach” would have been to keep the long-form census.

“After the government’s decision to replace the mandatory long form census, Statistics Canada was asked to provide options for conducting a voluntary survey of households. One of the options provided — the voluntary National Household Survey — was chosen,” he said.

The resignation will add to the turmoil already being felt by Statistics Canada employees. Staff expecting to get answers from the town hall meeting found themselves instead grappling with more uncertainty.

“I think a lot of people are concerned right now, not only about their jobs and what kind of work they will be doing but what kind of direction the agency will be taking,” said one source familiar with the situation.

For all Clement’s claims that the proposal was developed in concert with the statistical agency, insiders say Statistics Canada would never have endorsed a proposal that experts agree will produce data that is less reliable and may even be useless.

Ivan Fellegi, who served as Canada’s chief statistician for 23 years, is now calling for Statistics Canada to be made an independent agency of Parliament to take it out of the direct influence of politicians.

He said the government’s apparent decision to impose the voluntary survey on the agency was “interfering” without even giving the experts a chance to do a trial run to see if it works.

He noted how a voluntary survey was tested in the United States — and the idea abandoned.

“To go ahead and tell Statistics Canada to do something of a technical nature like this without letting us test it is, I think, political interference,” Fellegi said.

Just last March, Sheikh assured employees about the future of the long-form census, saying he had a funding strategy in place for next year’s census and into the future.

But now cabinet ministers say Canadians have been complaining that the 61-question long-form census — sent to one in five households — was intrusive. Other households get the eight-question census.

Since the decision became public, the Conservative government has been in the crosshairs of a growing storm of criticism from agencies and individuals of all stripes who say it will mean the loss of detailed data used to plan everything from health care to schools to transit and charitable programs.

Pollster Nik Nanos, who appealed to the Harper government not scrap the long form, said the situation just shows how far the Conservatives tentacles reach into the machinery of government.

“The economy is still jittery, we are at war in Afghanistan and the government is now fixated on how long the census form is. It’s a bit of a disconnect,” he said.

Nanos said the government’s position should have been to look at ways of improving the form rather than tossing it away.

“Now the government has effectively boxed itself in and now doesn’t want to lose face,” he said.

New Democrat MP Charlie Angus said the government is now moving a political crisis “to a whole new level.”

“We have a really disturbing pattern with this government. They make decisions based on short-sighted, short-term partisan gain and then when they get challenged they hang out their civil servants to dry,” Angus said.

Liberal MP Ralph Goodale said the decision to scrap the long form census without consultation illustrates that the Conservative government “doesn’t give a damn what Canadians think.”

Goodale said it is now up to various business and advocacy groups and the provinces as well to keep “pounding” away at Prime Stephen Harper’s government to force a reversal of the decision.

Sheikh took over as head of Statistics Canada in June 2008 after the retirement of long-time statistician Ivan Fellegi. Before that, the career bureaucrat served in a variety of federal posts, including deputy labour minister; deputy secretary to the cabinet (expenditure review); associate deputy minister of health, Health Canada; and several senior jobs in the finance department. He first joined the government in 1972 as an economist with the Economic Council of Canada.

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